Dave Chappelle Didn't Melt Down

Lesli-Ann Lewis attended the now-infamous Connecticut show
and says the comedian is not the one who's got a problem

"You are booing yourself."

I just watched Dave Chappelle quit stand up. Out in
the Comcast Theater in Hartford, Connecticut, shivering in the open air,
I can’t think that this is anything else. I felt this coming just five
minutes after the silver curtain had dropped dramatically, by which
point the former Comedy Central star had barely gotten any jokes out. We
all knew it was five minutes because, with an edge in his voice,
Chappelle had ticked off the time.

The Oddball "Funny or Die" tour was supposed to be Chappelle’s big
return to stand up (again). Shorty after taking the stage—to our massive
applause—someone in the front interrupted to ask if he was back for
real this time. He answered "Yes." We all cheered.

He had started with some Paula Deen jokes that went over well when he
had to stop again. Maybe it was his gratuitous use of the N-word to a
mostly White audience. Maybe it was the overpriced beer that, to my
amazement, everyone seemed to keep buying. Whatever it was, there was a
palpable change. The crowd got rowdier, louder, ruder. Folks started
calling out random references to his past work (he informed us that if
we ever see him in a Half Baked sequel, that means he's run completely out of money) and, most bizarrely, his 2006 Oprah interview.

After engaging some of the heckling politely, Chappelle had enough.
"I’ve been up here a while now and I thought it was me but now I ‘m sure
it’s you. There is definitely something wrong with you." he told us. In
other words, 'shut up and let me perform.' Not many did. Finally, he
gave up and took his cigarettes and his water and sat on stage.

The crowd got worse. People were booing, jeering. I
heard a woman yell something that was drowned out by a guy near me
screaming “DAVVVVVVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEE” for the umpteenth time. But Dave
hears her.

"Times like this, I wonder where Katt Williams is." He sips his water
and stares at us meaningfully. There is a hush. The jeers begin again.

When he decided he would not be doing the show, he responded to a voice
in the crowd: “I’m going to have to read about this sh*t for months.”

And he will—and none of the reports will be fair. They will include
bare facts; At the Hartford show, Dave Chappelle DID sit down and read
an excerpt from an audience member’s book.
At the Hartford show, Dave Chappelle DID give the crowd the middle
finger and tell us that we sucked ("You are booing yourself. I want you
to go home and look in the mirror and say 'boo,' that's how I feel about
you.")

[WATCH] Dave Chappelle in Hartfort, CT

Dave Chappelle in Hartford, CT, August 28, 2013

I doubt many will say the audience deserved it. I
doubt they will quote Dave or say that he warned the audience. That he
began to discuss a larger, historical issue: the Black entertainer and
White consumption.

I’m writing this to be fair: it needs to be written, it needs to be read. It needs to be understood.

Being in that crowd, a sea of drunk White male faces and seeing
Chappelle sit there and be jeered at made me uncomfortable. Heckling
isn’t uncommon for comedians but often when a comedian as famous as
Chappelle puts their foot down, it is usually respected.

While the racial makeup of the crowd was incidental, the way they
treated Chappelle is not. It speaks to a long complicated history: the
relationship between the White audience and the Black entertainer. This
is a relationship you can easily trace to early minstrel shows, to
archetypes of Blacks that still define the roles we’re offered today. We
have seen more Black comedians bow to racist tropes, demean
themselves—albeit unintentionally—for White audiences.

Chappelle wasn’t having a meltdown. This was a Black
artist shrugging the weight of White consumption, deciding when enough
was enough. This isn’t the first time Chappelle has done so and it isn’t
the first time his behavior has been characterized as a meltdown.

There is a long history of asking African-Americans to endure racism
silently; it’s characterized as grace, as strength. Chappelle’s
Connecticut audience, made up of largely young White males, demanded a
shuck and jive. Men who seemed to have missed the fine satire of the
Chappelle show demanded he do characters who, out of the context of the
show look more like more racist tropes, than mockery of America’s belief
in them.

When he expressed shock at the fact that he’d sat there and been yelled
at for so long, people yelled that they'd paid him. They felt paying
for a show meant they could verbally harass him, direct him in any tone
of voice, as though they’d bought him.

After his first “meltdown,” Chappelle said he left his show because he wasn't sure if he was being laughed with or at. Seeing him walk off that stage last night, I think he’d decided on the
answer. They had been missing his message, they weren’t laughing with
him. And I'm glad to see that in Connecticut, he had the courage to
laugh back.

Lesli-Ann Lewis is a habitual line-stepper and destroyer of norms. Follow her on Twitter: @lesellele

Oh good grief .. another example of a Black man messing up .. and bhm pretending that it was not his fault.

His is responsible for his own actions. It's doesn't matter what a heckler says in the audience ... heckling is part of standing up there and being a commedian. Duh! How come all the other comics know this ... but he does not know this?

And .. didn't he up and dissappear ... went to Africa years ago to get away from his obligations and commitments? I am sure he messed up a lot of people back then .. but somehow he was forgiven and brought back into the business again. He was lucky.

So now someone said something he didn't 'like' and ... he wallked off again. Hey no matter how someone treats you .. you have to have the good grace to .. handle it without flipping out and lookingf stupid. This can only make things FOR HIM not the crowd - worse. It's his career.

So all the people that promoted that show etc lost money, and the rest of the audience that was there to enjoy themselves lost their money ... because he had another hissy fit. Yes, he is talented but ....

Team Dave. Just because u get paid don't mean u have to take what is essentially workplace harassment. This was beyond heckling. Where is the footage? When Katt blew up on those messicans footage was all over the place. Y'all mean to tell me ain't nobody got a recording? Of course they do but them CAC's ain't gone come forward with it because they know they were wrong and Dave was within his rights. I hope Melissa speaks on this.

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